Sarah Palin gives acceptance speach for Vice-President and running mate for presidential candidate John McCain. McCain announced he had chosen Palin as his running mate. She is the second female vice presidential candidate representing a major political party, after Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and the First in the Republican Party. Sarah Louise Heath Palin ( born February 11, 1964) is the current governor of the U.S. state of Alaska, and is the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election.